Unpackaged Goods
Spilling the real stories behind CPG brands. Host Jonathan Deeter unpacks founder journeys, industry news, and what it really takes to build consumer brands.
Presented by Deet's Eats Media, a Pickle Advisors company.
Unpackaged Goods
Belle Robinson on Inventing the Functional Ice Cube + P&G Buys Thorne for $3.8B, Celsius Loses 17% on Record Revenue
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Celsius posted record revenue last week and the stock fell 17%. The reason is in the breakdown.
Plus: an interview with Belle Robinson, the London nutritionist who invented the functional ice cube.
THIS WEEK IN CPG
P&G agreed to buy Thorne for $3.8 billion. L Catterton took it private for $680 million in 2023. And roughly a quarter of Thorne's revenue reportedly comes from creatine, an ingredient that was still being sold as gym powder two years ago.
Celsius set a record and lost 17%. Revenue hit $818 million. Alani Nu supplied $364 million of it. The core Celsius brand fell 11.7%. Monster reported the same week with its flagship segment up 21.6%, which is the whole contrast.
80 Acres Farms is winding down after raising more than $350 million and supplying 18,000 retail locations. Not a demand problem wearing a startup costume. An economics problem wearing a technology costume.
Kraft Heinz took $7.4 billion in impairments and a $6.4 billion operating loss, while raising guidance that still projects a full-year decline.
Plus: Axum takes control of Barcode, Sargento enters the deli case, The Farmer's Dog buys Woof, Bain agrees to acquire Gong cha, and WK Kellogg pulls artificial colors a year early.
INTERVIEW: BELLE ROBINSON, ROXII SUPERCUBES
Belle Robinson is a London-based nutritionist who got tired of her own wellness routine. Powders, tinctures, shots, pills, cupboards bursting at the seams. She was already adding ice to her drinks because most functional powders only taste good cold. So she asked what would happen if the ice cube was the supplement.
Roxii launched with four SKUs, each stacking three functional ingredients plus six grams of fiber: Hydration, Immunity, Glow, and Chill, the last one built off the viral Sleepy Girl Mocktail. All under five grams of naturally occurring sugar.
The brand skipped DTC entirely. Roxii went straight to retail, testing 30 stores in the Minneapolis market before launching nationwide at Sprouts and Wegmans two months later, backed by 90 in-store demos in the first three months.
We covered:
Why she built for habit stacking instead of adding another step to a wellness routine
Going retail-first and what you give up by skipping the DTC feedback loop
Creating a category versus creating a brand, and what retailers ask when you don't fit the existing set
Why frozen stopped being a stale aisle, and where functional fits in the freezer
Hyper-freezing, nutrient density, and why the format is a genuine USP
Building a Gen Z brand ambassador program from London
What the UK gets right that the US hasn't caught up to yet
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You're watching Unpackaged Goods. I'm your host, Jonathan Dieter. We're back! Alright. It's uh August 11th. It's Tuesday. Um beautiful day. No, it's hot. It was nice this morning in Prospect Park though. But yeah, we're back in a routine. I think we're starting to get the hang of it and what we want the podcast to be. Um so we have another interview coming up with the founder of Roxy Supercubes. They are infused ice cubes. I've actually been using them the last couple of nights because uh been biking a lot, and so finding ways to get my magnesium and my lithianine, and then they have like a um community one. So yeah, that interview's coming up here at the end. Uh as always, a couple of housekeeping items are here at the top. If you haven't yet subscribed to our newsletter, head on over to Substack. Uh, if you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts, if you could pause here. Rate and review us five stars, that would be incredible. It really helps us get in front of other listeners. And uh yeah, if you haven't followed us on socials, Deeets Eats NYC, you can follow us on Instagram or TikTok or wherever you get your social media. Alrighty. Without further ado, let's dive in. Started talking with my hands, and then the camera went everywhere. So um we're gonna rip through the newsletter. If you read my newsletter, this is all gonna be familiar news for you. We're gonna dive a little bit deeper. We're gonna talk about some of the headlines. Alrighty. So the biggest headline of the week PG agreed to buy Thorn for $3.8 billion. So El Catardon's been on fire. That's a lot of money for a supplement brand. But here's the context that makes that number matter. El Catterden took Thorne private for $680 million in 2023. So in under three years, the headline value in the business went up more than three billion dollars. That's crazy. So Thorne did over 500 million in sales in 2025. They should hit around 650 million this year. They've been compounding about 30% annually since going private. Most of their customers are under 40. I'm one of them. I take two of their supplements. Uh I'd have to go look at them. Their direct-to-consumer business keeps climbing, and PG reportedly beat Hallion in a bidding process to get it. So here's the details I can't stop thinking about. Thorne's creatine business reportedly accounts for 25 to 30% of total revenue. Sit with that. A Fortune 500 company just agreed to pay $3.8 billion for a supplement brand. And roughly a quarter of the brand's revenue comes from creatine. Two years ago, creatine was still marketed as a powder sold to Jim Bros. It was a bodybuilding supplement. Now it's a mainstream wellness ingredient. I took my creatine this morning. With importantly, a fast-growing female base. A female customer base. And in the same week that this deal was announced, in the same week the deal was announced, Needed launched a women's creatine line. Five grams per serving. And I don't think that's a coincidence. That's the category telling you where the customer went. So and this deal doesn't happen in isolation. This is PNG's second health acquisition this year after Wonderbelly in January. Bain bought Vitabiotics for for $1.2 billion. Kieran agreed this week to buy Jameson Wellness for $2.5 billion Canadian. Unilever bought Gruins. Lactails brought Protein Works. And Nestle's reviewing its own health and wellness portfolio as we speak. That's six major supplement deals in like six weeks. So if you're running a supplement brand with real distribution and science you can actually defend, there's a decent chance you're already sitting in someone's acquisition model. You may just not know it yet. Alrighty, segment two. Celsius Holdings reported Q2 revenue of eight hundred and eighty million dollars. 10% growth, but the stock dropped more than 17%. Why is that? The breakdown explains it. Alani New contributed $364 million. The Core Celsius brand fell $11.7%. The Core Celsius brand fell 11.7%. Which I think makes sense that you have these energy incumbents that are coming into the market that people are more attracted to. Whether it be clean ingredients, branding, the lifestyle that it portrays. I think that's the big thing. I think Celsius had this huge, massive influencer push five, six years ago. And I think people now have kind of outgrown it. But Celsius has their loyal fans. People who drink Celsius, they swear by it. So Celsius bought a line new for $1.8 billion in early 25. But the deal now looks less like an opportunity they seized and more like something they needed. Because it's the reason the consolidated business grew at all. Strip out the acquisition, and the flagship is shrinking. Inside a category that's still expanding. I want to be fair here. Celsius did the conventional thing correctly. They identified a fast-growing brand, they paid a full price for it, they integrated it well, and Alani New is performing. The problem is that Alani New is now load bearing, and a business with one load-bearing asset has no margin for that asset to have an off-quarter. Now compare that to Monster, which reported the same week. Monster's net sales rose 22% to $2.5 billion. First time they've crossed $2.5 billion in a quarter. International was up 34%, and the core monster energy segment grew 21.6%. The flagship is the engine. That's the difference between a portfolio that compounds and a portfolio that gets carried. Same category, same week, opposite structure. Segment three. So one of my friends was very disappointed about this. She commented on my substack, even emailed me about it, and she meant to get comment, but um so different kind of story and an important one. Because 80 acre farms is winding down, and this is one of the heavy weights in indoor agriculture. They raised more than $350 million. They supplied over 18,000 retail locations, and they're done. Why? Here's how I read it. This wasn't a demand problem wearing a startup costume. It was an economics problem wearing a technology costume. Controlled environment agriculture promises real things: consistent local supply, fewer food miles, less water, immunity from weather, and every single one of these claims can be true. Well, the cost structure still fails because energy, labor, facilities, and facilities don't care how good your pitch deck is. The company had capital. It had retail distribution, it had scale, but what it never got was utilization strong enough to carry the fixed costs. Now, I covered Hippo Harvest a couple weeks ago. They raised $30 million to expand the robotics greenhouse from one acre to 30, and Cox Farms led the round, which is the largest greenhouse operator in North America. I'm not calling the outcome on that one. Different model, different cross structure, strategic investor at the table. But the vertical farm and thesis just got its most expensive stress test, and the results are public. If you're building anything capital intensive, calling the infrastructure your moat, understand that infrastructure only becomes a moat after utilization works. Before that, it's just a fixed cost with better branding. Segment four. We're just flying today. This is this is good. Kraft Heinz writes down $7.4 billion. This was a big headline that I don't think people really understand because accounting jargon can really just muddy the whole thing. So what it means? Kraft Heinz reported a $6.4 billion operating loss after recording $7.4 billion in non-cash impairments. A lot of big buzzwords. So in the same release, they raised their 2026 outlook, organic sales outlook. Though I want to be pre precise about that, because the revised guidelines still projects a full-year decline of 0.5 to 2%. They raised it from bad to less bad. So read those two things together and you get an honest picture. New CEO, Steve Calhain, he sees better near-term trading and he's putting $700 million into marketing and innovation, up from $600 million he originally committed to. At the same time, the company is acknowledging that the major brands are worth far less than what it had been carrying them for on their books. And last year's charge was 9.3 billion. This is the balance sheet version of the Celsius story. A headline can improve while the underlying portfolio weakens, and an accounting can delay the reckoning for a while. Neither one of those manufacturers demand. I don't think legacy food is dead, but an awareness without relevance is an expensive asset to maintain. And Callahan singled out Oscar Meyer and Kraft Mac and Cheese as the two lines that need work. Those are enormous brands. Almost everyone listening to this knows them. But knowing them and buying them are different things. Segment five, on the deals and the funding. So let's dive in. Rapid fire on the rest of this stuff. So uh Axum Capital Partners took a controlling stake in barcode. It's the drink backed by Wemby, Victor Vemuniana, the French NBA superstar. He's gonna stay on as a stakeholder and a strategic partner because he's basically the face of basketball. And barcode launched so barcode, a little history on them, but we'll back up a little bit. They launched in 2021 as an RTD sports drink. And RTD sports drinks remain one of the hardest categories in beverage because Gatorade and PowerAid own the shelf and the price points. Axam's bet is that professional operators plus a famous name convert better than a famous name alone. Worth watching because a lot of athlete brands are watching too. They're like, this is gonna work. Sargento agreed to buy La Terrafina, moving past natural trees into deli case for the first time since 1953. Clean adjacency. They already know refrigerated dairy, cold chain, retail buyers. They just didn't know the deli section yet. Farmer's Dog acquired Woof after serving more than a billion meals, adding enrichment to a business built on nutrition. And Bane Capital agreed to acquire Gongcha, the 2200 bubble tea chain. Bubble tea can look fragmented from the sidewalk at 2200 stores across 29 countries. It's institutional. On the funding side, Noon raised $2.5 million from BFG Partners, River Park Habitat Fund to launch in nearly 2,000 target stores. Founded in 2025, raising in 2026 to stock a national placement. The round isn't paying for discovery, it's paying for inventory against shelf space they already won, which is a much easier check to write. Proxy Foods AI, they raised $6 million for AI native product development. And finally, Newtonic finally closed their seven-figure seed round, led by Red Rice after growing 300%. Boba Pops raised $2.2 million from 460 community investors. That was a unique one. And Uncle Arnie's added $2 million, extending its Series A. Krem, the French skincare brand, took its first outside equity from Irish Ventures after doubling revenue every year since 2020. And almost nobody in American Beauty thinks about the pharmacy channel. And here they are just dominating it. Alright, so segment six, some launches and some data to highlight. Before we wrap things up, Elf and Bubble did a limited time collab. Premier Protein launched a sparkling protein soda. Jumex went into protein shakes along with 29 Walmart hundreds Walmart stores. True Bar launched a ProLine at 18 grams of protein and 12 to 13 grams of fiber. Seven Sundays moved into pancakes. And needed launched a women's creatine. Protein has stopped stopped behaving like a category and started behaving like a required claim. Chef Esther Choi Chef Esther Choi launched Sesi, a Korean American pantry brand with sesame oil, soy sauce, gochujang made with Sempio, one of the oldest food companies in Korea. Tropped at a smoky pineapple hot sauce at Whole Foods, and Fix and Fog launched a banana caramel peanut butter and nailed the lail the label. So Kellogg will pull artificial colors and BHD from the rest of the cereal portfolio by the end of 2026. That's big news. Nearly a year ahead of schedule. Reformulating a full portfolio is slow and expensive, so finishing up early tells you something. My read is they see regulatory and consumer pressure increasing rather than easing. So they'd rather absorb the cost on their own timeline rather than someone else's. One more thing from the data Lotus Bakeries plans to invest 500 million euros in biscoff capacity around the continents. Grillos started a production at 54 million dollar plant in Indiana. That's a fifth capac. Alright, that's it. So if you've made it this far, thank you so much. Means the world to me. Now, our interview with Roxy Supercubes. Alrighty, so welcome back to Unpackaged Goods. I have a very special guest from the UK today. I have Belle, the founder of Roxy Supercubes. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about your brand and we'll hop into it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Jonathan. I'm really excited to be here. Um I'm Belle. I'm actually a London-based nutritionist who founded Roxy about two years ago now. We've been in retail about six months, but um, we are the first ever functional ice cube.
SPEAKER_00That's so interesting. So tell me a little bit more about the path from dietitian to functional ice cube. Was this a pattern that you were noticing in your clients that they were just consuming too much ice?
SPEAKER_01Well, actually, no. The it the Roxy stemmed from the wellness industry being far too complicated. And, you know, even I as a nutritionist found myself so overwhelmed by wellness shots, adding powders, tinctures to my water throughout the day, taking pills, my cupboards were literally bursting at the steam, it seems. So um, I was also adding a lot of ice into my drinks to make them taste good because a lot of these powders have to be cold to be really palatable. Um, so one day when I was adding ice to my drink, I thought, what if it could just be as easy as dropping an ice cube into water? So I started playing around at home, and that's kind of where Roxy was born from. Um, it started with my immunity cube. I was making them at home, I was stashing them in my freezer, and it was all around this habit stacking thing. You know, Roxy super cubes don't just have one nutrient in. We have um uh about three different functional ingredients, as well as six grams of fiber per cube. So they really are habit stacked, and it took a lot of steps away from my daily wellness routine for me. It just was so much more convenient.
SPEAKER_00You make a really good point. It has to be habit forming. And I think that's the problem in CPG, is so many people will try a product once, but they don't see where it fits into the habit. And so I drink a lot of water throughout the day. And like you said, like a lot of these powders and things that I add, like don't taste very good if there's not ice and if it's not cold. And so tell us a little bit about like the wellness stack of cubes that you've created. You said there are a few different ones, maybe different ingredients that uh target different um symptoms or different types of uh yeah. Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01So we launched with four SKUs. Um we have hydration cube, which is full of electrolytes, magnesium, potassium. We also have our immunity cube, which is 200% of your vitamin C and zinc. We have our glow cube, which is very hair, skin, and nails focused. So that's collagen, vitamin A, biotin. And then last but not least is our chill cube, which was actually a really fun take on the viral sleepy girl mocktail. So tart cherry, magnesium, alpheanine, um, but I really wanted to keep them all low sugar. So they're all under five grams of natural occurring sugars. Um, and like I mentioned, the fibre, about 94% of Americans don't get enough fiber. So this was something I was really keen on including in the cubes. And we used a blend of two different fibers, um, which was the least disruptive on the digestive system. Because I think a lot of people avoid functional foods because they can trigger bloating um and digestive discomfort. So that was something else as a consumer myself, um, I wanted to be really, really clear on.
SPEAKER_00That's so cool. I've never seen the ice cube format for taking my different uh supplements. And so is there an education hurdle, you know, as you're starting to tell people about like why functional ice cubes, it's kind of like, hey, you're already using ice, so this is something to incorporate, or what are those conversations like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, education has been such a big part of the Roxy brand. You know, this is total innovation, it's something totally new. We're creating a new category and not just a new brand. Um, so that has, you know, that's any startup's challenge. Um, we're really trying to educate the consumer that frozen can be better than fresh and ambient. And I think, you know, consumers are coming becoming more educated around that. Um, we freeze our cube, we actually hyper-freeze our cubes. So it locks in a lot of the nutrition and the flavor compared to things that are sitting on shelves for weeks, months, things like that. So they are a lot more nutrient dense. And the flavour of our cubes, I'm not sure if you've tried them, but the flavour is like nothing else. They are super fresh because they're frozen at such cold temperatures. Um, so from an experience point of view, Roxy really does have a USP. But when it comes to communicating that to the consumer, we we've really invested into demos, install demos, because I think once the consumer sees it come to life in person, they see how easy it is and they taste the product, that's when they become hooked.
SPEAKER_00And now, as you look at getting this in front of consumers, right now you're just D2C. You've heard in some stores like Pop-Up Grocer, I think. What is the retail strategy? Are you trying to maybe get into like hotels or what are there any other sales channels that are particularly interesting to you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're actually not D2C. We've never been D2C. We launched, yeah, from the moment um I kind of kicked off with the brand. 18 months later, we went on shelf into the Minneapolis market, into 30 Luns and Bailey stores, which was a really good test market for us for two months. And then two months later, we launched Nationwide of Sprouts and Wegmans. So it was a really nice transition to have that time. But I think there's pros and cons because I think if you are D2C, it's such a good learning time. You can get that real tangible feedback. We, because we went straight through retail, um, didn't get that kind of quick feedback that I was just desperate to have. So we're constantly in our DMs, we are reaching out to consumers when we're tagged in anything, when people spot us. I want to know everything. So I'm trying to like get as much information as I can. Um, and then when it comes to demos, obviously I'm based in London, but I do travel to and from the US, but I can't be at every demo in every store. And with Sprouts, in the first um three months, we really invested in we invested in 90 demos um across stores. And that was challenging for me as a founder because it wants to know everything. I want to be really hands-on on you. This is my baby, and you've got to let go of a little bit of that control um and really put your trust into other people. And it was it worked out really nicely. We were having weekly updates, um, getting lots of feedback um from the guys that were doing the demos for us, and yeah, just staying really on top of it. But demos have been great.
SPEAKER_00That's what I hear for a lot of founders, just getting out in the wild and seeing those reactions, getting feedback in real time. That's the most important thing as you grow. So you're in some pretty big retailers. What has been like launching in the Midwest, so a town like a town in state like Minneapolis? Like, how is that different from trying to get into like the coastal towns for you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think, well, our um CEO um who he's actually based in Minneapolis. So that was a really nice kind of home market to launch in. And I think the fact it was 30 stores is big, but it's not too big. You know, you can control it, which is really nice. So we have people on the ground. I was out there at the start doing loads of events um popping up where our consumers hang out. So Roxy are really big on that. We do loads of Roxy pop-ups. We're at the workout studios, the health and wellness events. We want to be seen where our rock stars, we call them, are, you know, hanging out in the mornings or on the weekends. Um, so that was really key at the start with the Minneapolis market. But then obviously, when you're launching into a lot more stores overnight like Sprouts, it's hard to be seen everywhere at once. So um, yeah, it was a big transition. Um, we're currently building out a team of brand ambassadors for Roxy, um, which is going to be a gradual process, but we want to get um a team on board who feel really passionate about the brand and who are, you know, our consumer, and but we're targeting Gen Zs. Um that we want them to be our consumer, we want them to have fun with it and really be able to shout about the product um to yeah, to our community.
SPEAKER_00And so tell me a little bit about yourself. Where were you born? Were you have you always lived in the UK?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was born um in the UK and the south coast of England, and I've always lived here. Um I have always had a passion for health and wellness, although I studied fashion, um I worked in the fashion industry for five years, which I think really was where my love for branding and consumer retail kind of really kicked off. Um, but my real passion, like I said, is health and wellness. So when I went back to study to become a nutritionist, um I used to love, and I still do, love coming over to the US and seeing what's going on in your CPG world. Um, a lot of the trends are starting over there. I'd come back with so much inspiration. Um, so yeah, it it really did kind of like trigger the entrepreneur in me to really start Roxy.
SPEAKER_00I love it. And yeah, the London and UK CPG scene is very different. Uh, I've spent Uh, a good amount of time over in London for work over the years, and my sister studied there, and so uh I love spending time there. And so tell me about some products in the UK that you probably won't find in the US that you really love.
SPEAKER_01It's a really good question because I think a lot of these trends start in the US and then they trickle over to us here. But there are things happening here in the UK, you know. We've got some really interesting things when it comes to um ingredient standpoints. I think we've got, we're known for having a lot more of like a clean label and being able to trace and track where our dairy comes from and things like that. Um, in terms of, I guess it does come under the wellness um umbrella. There are some really cool brands like I Am, which is born from London, which is a longevity-based skincare brand. Um, there's Kodo, which is home fragrance, but it's very clean and you know that it's all very focused on wellness and small batch. Um, so yeah, there are things happening, but I think a lot of people in the UK would always look at the US for trends. And I visited my first Expo West three years ago, and I had never seen anything like it. And I think going for anyone looking to start a brand, going to Expo is just a no-brainer. It's a must because you do leave and your your brain feels so full of so many crazy ideas and concepts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the summer fancy food shows going on uh the last couple days here in New York. I've been I've been the last two days and I'm planning on going then here after this, and it's been wild to see all of the innovation. I think really the the international inspiration, you know, 70% of the show is really international. And so seeing all the different Yeah, and seeing all the different countries and the suppliers and the distributors and what they're trying to bring over to the the states, it's really it's fascinating. So I think that is really good advice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's I think it's always a dream, you know. If you can crack the US market, it's um it's a big job, it's not easily done, but it's the opportunity in the US is it's an amazing opportunity. Is there anything you've seen from the UK over at the Fancy Food Show that's caught your eye?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna have to go back to the UK section. There's literally they section them by countries, and so um you can find countries from all over the world, but uh I have to think I think there were a lot of teas. I went to the Harney and Sons, they had a huge tea exhibit, and they had my my mom loves their teas, and so they had their like new holiday tea set, and so far took a picture. I was like yeah, it was like my mom, my aunt, they like so many Harney's tea boxes around their houses. So I'm like, all right, I know what you're getting for Christmas.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're like, this is the perfect gift. The other thing I think is, you know, I used to bring so I used to take a suitcase over with me to the US and fill it with things from Whole Foods and Ale and etc. And hoard it back. But we have um something called health.com now in the UK. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it's been I have seen it or I've heard of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been great because um we can get a lot of the US brands, things like Purely Elizabeth Granola, things like this that we can now get them in the UK, which is pretty game-changing.
SPEAKER_00That's so cool. Yeah, Purely Elizabeth was there yesterday. They were debuting their new protein granola.
SPEAKER_01I love the protein granola. It's very good. Yeah. I tried it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It it yeah, it is. It's uh there was a lot of fun stuff. I think today, like a lot of the brands will just be giving away stuff because they don't want to take it all back with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, always the final day, right? You've got to take a big tote bag and it's yeah, you can get all the samples. So much fun.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So you're in the frozen section, which is really having a resurgence. I would say that it's really there have been a lot of cool brands that have been innovating in the frozen aisle, but what that comes with that is the challenges of shipping frozen, the challenges of having a product that um, you know, maybe doesn't do well in hot temperatures. And so how does that does the summer months maybe affect your business, or do you try to target regions that maybe don't impact it or aren't as temperature uh Yeah?
SPEAKER_01It's a good question. I think do you know I think people always overworry about frozen and um the supply chain side of things. I think we haven't had any touchward, major problems um with the supply chain. And I think Frozen is having a bit of a surge right now. Um I was talking about this the other day. I think brands like True Fruit and Fruit Riot have really injected a freshness into the frozen aisle. Frozen used to be, you know, quite a stale aisle of the supermarket. Um it was known for the frozen pizzas, and things hadn't changed in years, and you never really would go down the aisle. But now, like I said, about the consumers becoming far more educated around frozen being a lot more nutritious um and frozen being fun. So, yeah, true fruit and fruit riot were great, you know, after over the past four or five years, um that's really injected the Gen Z walking down that frozen aisle. But I think there is um more to come with Frozen. I think we're only just at the start. We're the first functional frozen brand, and that in itself was confusing when we were pitching to retailers. You know, every retailer asks, where do you guys sit in this in the frozen set? And right now we sit with frozen fruit. Um, so we sit with the smoothie cues, we sit with the smoothie bowls, and there is this wellness set happening in Frozen, but I think it's gonna take time. But yeah, back to your question on supply chain, we've found that okay. And through the summer months, there's naturally a spike in sales, and um, because we're an ice cube, so summer is a bit of a no-brainer for that. But yeah, we we've been okay on the distribution side.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Yeah, no, I think you're right that a lot of people um kind of freak out about frozen when there's not a whole lot. It it still works, you know. That's why there's so many frozen brands.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um there's such a connection with the health and wellness space, fitness, you know, here in the States we've seen a huge boom in Pilates Studios, Cold Plunges, Saunas, these wellness places like Bathhouse. Um you some you mentioned a little bit those are, you know, your clientele, the Gen Zs. Um, are there any fitness brands that you really like that are kind of dream collabs or partnerships?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a very good question, too. Um, I think, yes, there's a few brands that we have up our sleeve that we would love to collaborate with. I think with Roxy, it works really well with um active wear and workouts and anything health and wellness, to be honest with you. But I think it's probably a pretty typical answer. But things like Vuri, Aloe, um, they're very kind of like I love the branding. It's very clean, it's very sporty. And when it came to developing the Roxy brand, I wanted it to be that, you know, I didn't want it to be too female focused. Um, I wanted it to feel a little bit sporty, a little bit cool, girl. Um, the colours, you know, they're fun. Um it really does pop on the shelf of the freezer. So I think, yeah, kind of echoing that with the the fitness brands that are happening. And yeah, there's a lot that we have on our list that we would love to collab with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I could see a sporty and rich collab.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sporty and rich would be very cool.
SPEAKER_00Seems very, very on brand and would be cool.
SPEAKER_01And the fact we have diff four different cubes, I think they fit into four different occasions. So we're not just, you know, we don't just have electrolytes. I love the fact that our chill cube can really work with like nightwear um or skip or face masks, things like that. So there's like so many different ways to use the cubes. And interestingly, they're all from a sales point of view, they're all selling at a similar rate of sale. Um, we thought there could be one that was an obvious leader, but yeah, it's been pretty um sustainable in terms of all four of them, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_00That's so cool. Yeah. And then like, do they come in packets of all four of them together, or do you sell them like separately for the different wellness stacks?
SPEAKER_01We sell them, so yeah, they're that we don't do a multi-pack. They're sold as just perskew. So your hydration, your immunity, your glow, your chill. Um, and in terms of what you can drop your Roxy into, they can be consumed in so many different ways. You know, people think obviously water with the water bottle movement that's happening. You know, you can chuck it in your Stanley Cup and you're good to go. But alternatively, they are incredible in sparkling water. In my opinion, they're better than any healthy soda on the market. Um, and they also really work well in alcohol and moptails. And um with the non-alcoholic movement, there's a really interesting gap happening there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I haven't drank in coming up on three years. And so exploring all of like, thank you, coming up, like exploring all the functional beverages and the NA space and things to add, and I'll have to add some ice cubes as some fun drinks. Yeah, that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_01The chill cube is a good one. Or even for the people that do drink, adding um a hydration cube to your tequila soda or your book of soda, um, you can get your electrolytes in whilst you drink, get your fiber in. They're all low sugar, um, and they're all pretty low calories, so it's a really healthy hack.
SPEAKER_00It's really smart that you added fiber because that's like a conversation that's starting to happen. You know, protein is still dominating, you know. I I think it's probably a good maybe probably intentional that you didn't put protein in. I think you probably didn't want it to be viewed as a protein product, is probably my assumption. But I don't know. Is there any reason maybe behind not putting protein?
SPEAKER_01We are developing, you know, we have four SKUs for four different functions. We've got a new cube launching next year, which isn't a protein cube, but it's something that's very exciting. Um, it's not been done in frozen before. It's probably my favorite cube yet when it comes to taste. Um, so that will be launching next year. But we are also working on another line of Roxy, um, something in the freezer. It's not a super cube, still frozen, still functional. Um, so yeah, keep your eyes peeled.
SPEAKER_00It will see, and I think you hint you hint at what a lot of the very smart brands do is they're not just creating one product line, they're creating a platform. And it sounds like that's where the thought process is behind Roxy, is that you can create a wellness platform, not and just start with the cubes and then really expand beyond that.
SPEAKER_01That's the thing, is for you know, formats really haven't evolved um for years. Wellness is blowing up in every part of the store. You look at ambient, fresh, any part of the super the store when you go to it, there's wellness products apart from frozen. And like I said, it's starting to emerge, but not really in functional. So yeah, I really think there is more to happen. I think there is we don't just want to be known for just one skew or one thing. It's we want Roxy to take over the freezer and create an entire new category.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I can see it, you know? Yeah. I I can see all the different functional applications that uh in all the sleepy corners of the frozen section that haven't been touched and that need a little a little love.
SPEAKER_01So And yeah, and just to add to that quickly, the experience of Roxy, it is an experience. So when you drop that cube in, the colour diffuses, the taste, like I said, is like nothing else. Um and it's it really is something that's TikTok worthy. It's colorful, it's really exciting, and it is different, it's fresh, it's really fresh and different. So I think that in that respect, we do have um a white, we found a white space.
SPEAKER_00It really sounds like it. And you kind of stole my or the answer to my next question. But if there's anything else that you'd like to convey about the brand that you haven't yet, anything else for people who aren't familiar with Roxy that you would love for them to know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it will follow us on Instagram. We're super social and we're we're building our community. We love popping up, like I said, at any health and wellness events, workout studios. So we're always happy to come along and pop up our Roxy stand. Um and in addition to that, if you think you could be a brand ambassador for Roxy, we'd love to also hear from you because we are growing our little family of rock stars.
SPEAKER_00I love it. And can I find it in the Wegmans here in Brooklyn or in New York? Is it in New York uh Wegmans?
SPEAKER_01We last time I was there, no, we weren't in the in the one in the city center, which was such a shame. But we are hopefully launching on shelf soon in those in those ones in the city. So definitely go check it out and let me know if you find it. But yes, pop-up grosser also.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I will be in the city today, obviously, for the show. And so I will make a special trip to Pop Up to get the cube so I can try them.
SPEAKER_01So let me know which one you go for and how you consume it. I love hearing those.
SPEAKER_00And I'll I'll tag you and send a picture. Yes, yeah, yeah, please do. Love that. I'm so excited. Well, this was so lovely. Um, I'll stop hitting rec hit record and then basically what'll happen is it'll Hearty. That's it. Great interview. Uh thank you so much. If you've made it this far, it means the world to me. Uh if you haven't yet, please rate and review us five stars. It takes two seconds. Uh follow us on socials, subscribe to our newsletter, and uh yeah, we'll see you next week.